Ex-Met chief backs Tory bid to tackle burglars with the Right to Fight Back

By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor

12:01AM BST 07 Aug 2005

Lord Stevens, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, is to spearhead a campaign aimed at winning householders the right to use more force against intruders.

He will join senior Conservatives in a fresh drive to win support for a Householder Protection Bill to be introduced into Parliament by the Tory MP Anne McIntosh.

The public backing of Lord Stevens, a straight-talker who became known as the "copper's copper" during his five years heading Scotland Yard, is a big fillip for the Right to Fight Back campaign, started last year by The Sunday Telegraph.

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, will officially launch the new campaign alongside Lord Stevens and Miss McIntosh next month. The Conservatives want to seize the chance to make political capital out of Tony Blair's refusal to change the law. Currently, householders are allowed to use only "reasonable force" against burglars, a legal definition that gives too much protection to intruders, the Bill's supporters say.

An earlier attempt by another Tory MP, Patrick Mercer, the party's homeland security spokesman, to change the law to allow the use of all but "grossly disproportionate" force against intruders, failed.

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Mr Mercer's Bill passed its first Commons hurdle, winning a majority of 130, but fell victim to filibustering by Labour MPs. Mr Mercer said: "John Stevens was absolutely right about the threat from home-grown terrorists. He adds enormous weight to the campaign to combat another type of home-grown threat.

"Currently the fear of physical harm and imprisonment lies with the householder and not the burglar. Anne McIntosh's Bill aims to change the whole balance of the law. When I was involved with this measure it was clear to me that public opinion was firmly on our side and that Mr Blair's stance was very unpopular."

Last December, Mr Blair told MPs that he supported a change in the law to give householders more rights. However, within weeks he had changed his mind. Many Labour MPs believed that he had been "won round" by Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, who insisted that burglars had rights too.

The replacement in December of David Blunkett, the former home secretary who backed changing the law, by Charles Clarke, who supports the status quo, is also thought to have helped to change Mr Blair's mind.

The Sunday Telegraph launched the Right to Fight Back campaign after Robert Symonds, a London teacher, was killed in his home by a burglar last October. It won wide backing, including 25,000 readers whose coupons calling for the law to be changed were delivered to 10 Downing Street.

Miss McIntosh's Bill is guaranteed enough debating time in the Commons because of her relatively high position - fifth - in the Private Members' ballot held just after May's general election.

Labour can, of course, use its parliamentary majority of 66 to try to crush the Bill, but such displays of political power are not guaranteed to succeed. Labour MPs have the option of rebelling, either by voting in favour of the Bill or abstaining.

Tory strategists believe that if Mr Blair orders his troops to kill Miss McIntosh's Bill, they will be able to portray him as "soft on crime". Since their general election defeat, they have been looking hard for issues on which they can attack the Government with public opinion firmly behind them.

Their search for the right subjects has become all the more acute since the London bombings. In the wake of the July attacks, an uneasy political "consensus" has meant that senior Tories have found it hard to attack the Government on big issues.

Michael Howard, the Conservative leader, has demanded that people should have the right "to feel safe in their own homes. They should be free to defend themselves and their family - which is what Anne McIntosh's Bill is designed to ensure".